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Hospital ,
hurts
taxpayer
Editorial/Page 7
South Tucson's
EI Independient
Vol. III. No. 7 Published By The Journalism Department Of The University Of Arizona
Sniffing
An abuse that invites serious harm
Vincent ran four blocks to Steve's house,
235 W. 23rd St. to get his brother
Gerald, 14.
But when Vincent and Gerald came
back, the other boys ran away.
Then, around midnight, Steve began
acting strange, He started running
around erratically and staring at things.
All of a sudden he scrambled over the
fence separating the Valenzuela house
from the alley, and never came back.
Sunday morning, Feb. 11, about 8:45,
two men from out of town were walking
south on Ninth Avenue and saw an object
lying in the alley to the west behind
Vincent's house, when they saw it was a
boy lying face down they checked for a
pulse, and found none.
The information contained in this ac
count of events was taken from police
reports and the boy's father.
According to Alan D. Barreuther,
assistant professor of clinical
harmacy at University Hospital,
1501 N. Campbell Ave..
Steve's death may have
been an incident of the
somewhat-rare "Sudden
Sniffing Death"
syndrome. with
SSD, said Bar-reuther,
the vic-tim's
body be-comes
charged
with excess
By D. NANETTE NORTON
Staff writer
Late Saturday night, Feb. 10, Steve G.
Lopez's mother told him to take a shower
and go to bed -- she was mad at him for
going off with his friends ail the time.
Instead, the 13-year-old Safford Junior
High student, his il-year-old brother,
Raymond, and three of their buddies took
off for Steve's cousin's house, 315 W. 27th
St.
when they got to his cousin's front
yard, they drenched an athletic sock with
lighter fluid one of the boys had bought at
a nearby Circle K, and took turns inhaling
the fumes from the sack.
After the boys tired of that, Steve took
a rubber pipe and inserted it in the gas
tank of his cousin's white pickup and
sucked the gasoline up the tube to inhale
the fumes, encouraging the other to try it.
Raymond, a novice, sucked too hard
and got a mouthful of gasoline.
He climbed into the back
seat of the abandoned
black Chevy parked
in front of the house
and fell asleep.
Steve's cousin,
Vincent Valen.
zuela, came out
of the house and /
saw what the
boys were do-ing,
saying if
they didn't stop
his dad would
get mad. But
when they
didn't
stop,
Parents seek
permanent
clean up
News/Page 2
energy, similar
o an adrenalin
reaction, and
causes the
person to
jump up and
un around
eildly. The
heart may
also begin
beat out of rhythm because its vital sup-ply
of oxygen has been reduced or even
cut off by the vapors, a condition that
usually causes the victim's death.
Steve's brother Gerald said, "we were
getting ready for it)Steve's death). We
told him not to do it."
Gerald said he inhaled gasoline and
lighter fluid once. "But when you get
finished, you get a headache."
Steve's father, Nolie A. Lopez, said the
family, which includes seven other
children, knew that Steve had been
sniffing gasoline and lighter fluid for some
time, but didn't know how to make him
step.
"His friends would come here and get
him and then they'd go away." said Lopez.
He said that before Steve stm-tcd saiffiog,
he was "a good boy." But recently he
began ditching school and getting bad
grades.
South Tucson police Detective Judy
H. Johnson said, "I don't think parents
exert the necessary control over these
kids. And you know those kids aren't old
enough to know that they may be doing
themselves permanent damage."
She called the brain damage that
resuits from chronic sniffing "incredible,"
saying, "One of the boys we talked to in
the case is already showing the effects of
it."
She said that as far as she knew, death
resulting from sniffing is not normal for
South Tucson.
Johnson saìd that because of Steve's
death she is going to talk to South Tucson
teachers about preventing substance-related
deaths.
It's not a lack of social services available
to South Tucson teenagers that fosters
abuse of chemicals, however, according to
Gilbert Garcia, director of Teen
Challenge, a non-profit Christian
organization located in the South Tucson
Civic Center, 1625 S. Third Ave.
"We go into the schools and talk to the
kids about the dangers of substance
abuse. We tell them the facts '-ut a girl who unce got high
on PCP )animal tranquilizer)
and chewed a hole through
the inside of her mouth
and bit off somebody's
ingers. We do it be-cause
we care,"
said Garcia, "not
because we
ant to
scare
February 23, 1979
them. We are usually asked back to give
another presentation."
T. Mel Jordan, psychiatrist and social
worker with the Children's Unit of La
Frontera Mental Clinic, 1931 5. Sixth
Ave., said, "We du a lot of counseling and
prevention-type work on an individual
basis," adding La Frontera works by
referral only.
"We try to work with the teenager and
his family to find out what the problems
are in the child's environment, such as
social pressures. We then work up
alternatives, stressing parental control of
the child.
"But it is not super-successful," he said,
"because we don't have any way of
removing the kids from the influence
which creates the behavior in the first
place. And we can't force the parents to
get involved.
Garcia said that Teen Challenge is faced
with the same problem. "People are
apathetic, don't really care," he said. "It
takes an incident like this tu make people
realize we're here. We even go door to
door, asking if any members of the
household have a problem with drugs or
alcohol. But we have trouble getting
people to respond to us."
He said Teen Challenge has only been in
South Tucson for a little over a year. "You
aren't trusted until you've been here a
while. We just have to convince people
that we're not he'e to rip them off."
If South Tuc:,n's substance-abuse
programs continue to go unnoticed, it
seems likely Steve's friends and others
will get high on gasoline and lighter fluid
again. And sume Sunday morning,
another young buy's body might be found
in an alley.

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The contents of this collection are available to the public for use in research, teaching, and private study. U.S. Copyright and intellectual property laws may apply to the resources made available through this site.

Full-text

Hospital ,
hurts
taxpayer
Editorial/Page 7
South Tucson's
EI Independient
Vol. III. No. 7 Published By The Journalism Department Of The University Of Arizona
Sniffing
An abuse that invites serious harm
Vincent ran four blocks to Steve's house,
235 W. 23rd St. to get his brother
Gerald, 14.
But when Vincent and Gerald came
back, the other boys ran away.
Then, around midnight, Steve began
acting strange, He started running
around erratically and staring at things.
All of a sudden he scrambled over the
fence separating the Valenzuela house
from the alley, and never came back.
Sunday morning, Feb. 11, about 8:45,
two men from out of town were walking
south on Ninth Avenue and saw an object
lying in the alley to the west behind
Vincent's house, when they saw it was a
boy lying face down they checked for a
pulse, and found none.
The information contained in this ac
count of events was taken from police
reports and the boy's father.
According to Alan D. Barreuther,
assistant professor of clinical
harmacy at University Hospital,
1501 N. Campbell Ave..
Steve's death may have
been an incident of the
somewhat-rare "Sudden
Sniffing Death"
syndrome. with
SSD, said Bar-reuther,
the vic-tim's
body be-comes
charged
with excess
By D. NANETTE NORTON
Staff writer
Late Saturday night, Feb. 10, Steve G.
Lopez's mother told him to take a shower
and go to bed -- she was mad at him for
going off with his friends ail the time.
Instead, the 13-year-old Safford Junior
High student, his il-year-old brother,
Raymond, and three of their buddies took
off for Steve's cousin's house, 315 W. 27th
St.
when they got to his cousin's front
yard, they drenched an athletic sock with
lighter fluid one of the boys had bought at
a nearby Circle K, and took turns inhaling
the fumes from the sack.
After the boys tired of that, Steve took
a rubber pipe and inserted it in the gas
tank of his cousin's white pickup and
sucked the gasoline up the tube to inhale
the fumes, encouraging the other to try it.
Raymond, a novice, sucked too hard
and got a mouthful of gasoline.
He climbed into the back
seat of the abandoned
black Chevy parked
in front of the house
and fell asleep.
Steve's cousin,
Vincent Valen.
zuela, came out
of the house and /
saw what the
boys were do-ing,
saying if
they didn't stop
his dad would
get mad. But
when they
didn't
stop,
Parents seek
permanent
clean up
News/Page 2
energy, similar
o an adrenalin
reaction, and
causes the
person to
jump up and
un around
eildly. The
heart may
also begin
beat out of rhythm because its vital sup-ply
of oxygen has been reduced or even
cut off by the vapors, a condition that
usually causes the victim's death.
Steve's brother Gerald said, "we were
getting ready for it)Steve's death). We
told him not to do it."
Gerald said he inhaled gasoline and
lighter fluid once. "But when you get
finished, you get a headache."
Steve's father, Nolie A. Lopez, said the
family, which includes seven other
children, knew that Steve had been
sniffing gasoline and lighter fluid for some
time, but didn't know how to make him
step.
"His friends would come here and get
him and then they'd go away." said Lopez.
He said that before Steve stm-tcd saiffiog,
he was "a good boy." But recently he
began ditching school and getting bad
grades.
South Tucson police Detective Judy
H. Johnson said, "I don't think parents
exert the necessary control over these
kids. And you know those kids aren't old
enough to know that they may be doing
themselves permanent damage."
She called the brain damage that
resuits from chronic sniffing "incredible,"
saying, "One of the boys we talked to in
the case is already showing the effects of
it."
She said that as far as she knew, death
resulting from sniffing is not normal for
South Tucson.
Johnson saìd that because of Steve's
death she is going to talk to South Tucson
teachers about preventing substance-related
deaths.
It's not a lack of social services available
to South Tucson teenagers that fosters
abuse of chemicals, however, according to
Gilbert Garcia, director of Teen
Challenge, a non-profit Christian
organization located in the South Tucson
Civic Center, 1625 S. Third Ave.
"We go into the schools and talk to the
kids about the dangers of substance
abuse. We tell them the facts '-ut a girl who unce got high
on PCP )animal tranquilizer)
and chewed a hole through
the inside of her mouth
and bit off somebody's
ingers. We do it be-cause
we care,"
said Garcia, "not
because we
ant to
scare
February 23, 1979
them. We are usually asked back to give
another presentation."
T. Mel Jordan, psychiatrist and social
worker with the Children's Unit of La
Frontera Mental Clinic, 1931 5. Sixth
Ave., said, "We du a lot of counseling and
prevention-type work on an individual
basis," adding La Frontera works by
referral only.
"We try to work with the teenager and
his family to find out what the problems
are in the child's environment, such as
social pressures. We then work up
alternatives, stressing parental control of
the child.
"But it is not super-successful," he said,
"because we don't have any way of
removing the kids from the influence
which creates the behavior in the first
place. And we can't force the parents to
get involved.
Garcia said that Teen Challenge is faced
with the same problem. "People are
apathetic, don't really care," he said. "It
takes an incident like this tu make people
realize we're here. We even go door to
door, asking if any members of the
household have a problem with drugs or
alcohol. But we have trouble getting
people to respond to us."
He said Teen Challenge has only been in
South Tucson for a little over a year. "You
aren't trusted until you've been here a
while. We just have to convince people
that we're not he'e to rip them off."
If South Tuc:,n's substance-abuse
programs continue to go unnoticed, it
seems likely Steve's friends and others
will get high on gasoline and lighter fluid
again. And sume Sunday morning,
another young buy's body might be found
in an alley.